Curing the Sadness
by Hispaniola'sCaptain
Summary: Between the Battle of Canary Wharf and when he met Martha, something happened to the Doctor to help him get over the loss of Rose. Worried about the Doctor, the TARDIS takes him to meet a Jedi Master who had also lost everything that was important to him, and survived the sadness. Told from the POV of the TARDIS.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This takes place after the Battle of Canary Wharf, but before the platoon of Judoon steal the moon. I make no apologies for the grammar. This story is told from the point of view of the TARDIS, and we all know she has a little trouble with tenses. And with following a coherent line of thought. But I do my best to get her voice, and an understandable story. **

I spun away from the star my dear Doctor had killed just so he could say goodbye to his little flower bad bad bad wolf girl. Not that I could blame him. The aching sorrow poured of him when she slipped away from him. (Or is it will slip? Tenses are so confusing!) He had been so full of hurt and anger after the War, and his flower girl had reminded him that the universe is beautiful. And mad wonderful swirling nebulous lovely…sorry, language is hard. I'm so used to ideas and an idea can spin into the next quicker than a blink. Or a wink. But I could feel his happy love surround him, like the way he feels about me, when the flower girl was with him. Now she's been pulled away, and my dear Doctor is empty lonely.

As I whisked through the ether, I felt another sad loneliness, calling out. But this sad isn't as recent hurting as my dear Doctor's. It tasted older, and more understanding. Maybe whoever had this sadness could help us understand the loss of the flower girl.

My Doctor doesn't notice the adjustments I made. Poor thing, he was slumped against one of the twisty columns. But he did notice when we landed. I'd gotten used to the feel of the brakes ages and ages and long time past. So I didn't mind making the sound when we landed. Besides. I knew it made him happy. Well, it still does. It always does. But anyway. Where was I? When was I?

Oh, yes.

The planet was dancing along the outer edge of its galaxy, turning turning turning. There was so much wet life, but I was looking for the sadness. I was a buzzing bee to the flower of the sadness. I missed the flower girl, too. She was a stray, but she made my dear friend so happy.

My dear Doctor was surprised. I loved the way his surprise bubbled up from a deep place and danced around in his eyes.

"Where've you taken me now, eh, my girl?"

He opened my door. (The wrong way AGAIN! I tell him to pull and he pushes. I tell him to push and he pulls. It's endlessly frustrating.) I knew he wouldn't have to go far to find the sadness. In fact, it was coming closer to us.

"Wow. What a place. Mmm, blah, tastes kind of like cotton and spinach. I dunno…" He ran back over to look at one of my screens. Running running all this running. I don't think it's good for him. He used to enjoy planets. He laughed a delighted laugh. "I haven't been to this one! Oh, you beauty," patted my console affectionately, "you've brought me to a new one. Rose, come and- oh. Oh, right." The laughing was cut away by the bitter loneliness again.

Well, that's why we were here. There could be someone out there who could help him. I was sure of that, as sure as I've been of anything. In fact, I could feel the sadness, now mixed with healthy curiosity rolling closer and closer. My sensors showed me a small creature with big flappy type things on its head. It carried a staff and a sense of itself. I liked that. Not many creatures are so sure of themselves that their name becomes a part of their essence. But this one was powerful. He felt like a Time Lord, certain so certain of himself. But he felt like my dear Doctor as well, happy to be surprised, though a little wary. And too like my dear Doctor, his being was all summed up in one word.

_Yoda._


	2. Chapter 2

My dear Doctor poked his head back outside, scanning the air around him with his screwdriver. That was good, but I didn't like the way his enjoyment was drooping and distracted.

The screwdriver blinked and my unhappy Doctor looked at it almost without seeing it. If I had a voice, I would have told him to go outside, into the outside. But I couldn't. Silly to wonder about things that cannot happen.

"D'you know something?" I never could tell if he was talking out loud to himself or to me. "I've got the funniest feeling." A rustle came from the place where the Yoda was standing. My Doctor froze in a melancholy way, not going out or back in. Just waiting and watching. "It's like I'm being watched."

The Yoda waited. I waited. My Doctor waited.

I don't like waiting.

I firmly shut my door, pushing my Doctor out onto the planet.

"Oi! What was that all about?" He was annoyed and intrigued, but still empty. He sniffed the air again. "Of course, it makes sense to feel like you're being watched," he said pulling his casualness on like his coat, "when you are." I was thrilled when he knelt by the bushes where the Yoda was. "So who's watching, is the question."

A grunt was the answer.

"Oh, hell-oh there." A new species would always interest my Doctor. "Sorry about dropping in unannounced, but my ship gets these ideas, I dunno. Of course, it could just be broken." I ignored the insult. "But, um, d'you think you could tell me where I am?" The Yoda let out a coughing bark of laughter.

"Where you are, ask you. Here you are, say I!" Oh yes, the Yoda was very like my Doctor, particularly back the way he was when I stole him.

"Well, yeah, that makes sense, but, uh, in a broader idea of the world, where am I?" my Doctor asked. The Yoda was grave, and worried too, I could feel. The air was full of his worry before he answered.

"Dagobah this planet is called."

"Dagobah! Right! I've never been to Dagobah." The Yoda coughed another laugh.

"Heard of this planet, have you? A planet that isn't on any start charts, hmmm? And you know of it, you do? Hmmmm?"

"No, I haven't. But that makes sense, if I've never been here before. I mean, I could have been here without hearing about it, or I could have heard about it without being here, but I haven't."

I could feel the Yoda relax a little. Whatever he was expecting that had him so worried tight, apprehensive, there's the idea! Whatever it was, my dear Doctor was not.

"So, Da-go-bah." This version of my Doctor had a funny way of rolling planet names around in the air. Well, if he was willing to be silly, maybe things were going the right way. Although, maybe the left way was the way for him to go…

"Erm, wait, didn't you just say it's not on any star charts? How is that? I mean, sure your local charts, that's an easy hack. But _any _chart?"

The Yoda tensed again, but only for a moment. He relaxed in a sad way, like a surrender.

"Changed the charts, I did. Hid the planet, I had to."

"Right, OK," my Doctor said slowly. "You're hiding from something. Something big." The air bounced out after the _g, _the way it did when this version was concentrating hard. "Something powerful."

"Something _dangerous,_" the Yoda corrected firmly, then surrendered again. "What do you know…of the Sith?"


	3. Chapter 3

I felt my dear Doctor pause, more of his mind thought turning towards the Yoda. His ache was there, still bumping the air around him, but at least he wasn't so focused on it. Stuck on it. Rolled up in it.

If I had lungs, I would sigh. My poor dear friend.

"The Sith? The Sith. The Siiiiiith. Ahhhh, no actually." Surprise happy curiosity now, and that quick swirl of excitement in his voice. I feel smug. Felt smug? Hmmph. Well, anywho, no creature can know everything. Except maybe a TARDIS. But we aren't quite creatures, my sisters and I. No, I don't think we are. But maybe someonecould argue it. I should try and find that person.

Sorry. I knocked myself off course there. It's so hard to stay on one thought at a time; how do you humans do it?

The Yoda let out his own sigh, one that let his own ache show a little.

"Never heard of the Jedi, have you?"

"Errm. Nope." The _p _popped. His interest builds. My hope gamble builds.

"Then from very far you have come." I was right. The Yoda is wise. Most beings don't ever figure that out. Even the strays my dear Doctor picks up don't always believe that.

My Doctor laughs. It's a hollow sound, empty and full of emptiness.

"Yeah, pretty far. But, erm, since they seem like a big deal, why don't you tell me?"

An angry grunting snort growl burbled from the Yoda.

"A big deal? Careless are you, old man? Protectors of the peace, the Jedi were. For thousands of generations we served the galaxy."

"Erm, hang on." My Doctor is intrigued. Worried, too? He always worries about his age. Silly of him. But, better worry silly about time passed than inside his heart crying.

"How do you know I'm old?"

I was right. He's intrigued by _that._ Vain old thing.

The Yoda gives his own empty laugh, though it's less empty than my Doctor's.

"Betrayed by your eyes, you are. Much they have seen, haven't they?"

"Yeah," my dear Doctor admits quietly. "Yeah, I've seen a lot." The pregnant quiet swirls between the two, pulling them closer to thoughts, pushing them further from words. I settled down onto the damp swamp water earth. We were going to be here a while. I may not enjoy waiting, but I wouldn't leave until my dear friend's hurt had been shrunk.

"Lost much too, I'd think," the Yoda growled finally.

I always expect everything, but even the Yoda managed to surprise me. What a pleasant thing to discover.

But back to the straight line story.

My dear Doctor was rolled backwards in shock hurt and it was a long long _long _moment time space dimension before it was dissipated enough for him to speak.

"Is it that obvious?" His voice was a slumped shadow of itself. A long sound of resignation to hurt breathed out of the Yoda.

"To live long is to see suffering," he croaked. A wave of pained agreement rose up bubbling boiling surfacing in my dear Doctor.

"Yeah," came a little meek sound. My Doctor shouldn't sound meek. He _shouldn't._

Another aching pause.

"So what did you lose?" my Doctor finally reached out asked. Even when he hurts, he would always have that sympathy empathy entropy inside him. That's why he doesn't deserve to hurt.


End file.
